Analyze the background, illumination, camera angle, and sound quality of each individual.  Rate your team's set-up on a scale of 1-10.  If your team is 6/10 or less, then this article will be of value.  Are you serious about your sales team's virtual sales performance and prepared to invest in their work from home infrastructure? 

My Office Setup

The image below is of my Deskrig office setup.  I use a desk-riser as well as a laptop stand to elevate the camera to eye level. I always stand in virtual meetings.  I have a portable whiteboard flipchart, as well as pre-printed visual confections on poster boards to quickly convey big ideas.  My office has incandescent lighting and I use 4* LED lights to illuminate the blue screen behind me for crystal clear video with a branded office background.  My laptop is a new M-1 Mac with a GPU and I use a Canon EOS camera, but I even though the camera has a good microphone, I use a Yeti Nano cardioid microphone from Blue for excellent sound quality. When I am standing, which i do in every meeting, gesturing is natural and unforced and conveys in-room presence much more effectively than a seated talking-head.

My remote selling setup

Some salespeople will have already set themselves up for virtual selling success, but the majority have not or still have plenty of room to improve. To improve virtual meeting outcomes where video and whiteboarding is used on every call, consider including the cost of the following in your 2023 sales budget: 

• HD video camera.  If an HD camera is not built into the laptop an external HD camera is mandatory. The leader in this space is Logitech and I selected their latest HD stereo camera.  There are cameras that work well for much less, but my philosophy is to invest in the critical infrastructure you rely on in every call vs. going cheap.  A case in point this morning on a Zoom call, a friend bought a $20 Webcam in the Amazon Prime sale, and while the image quality was fantastic, the sound was muffled, so he will have to buy an external mic for high-quality sound.  Since I originally published this article, I upgraded my video camera to a 35mm Canon EOS M50 mirrorless camera, for perfectly clear video.

• Internet bandwidth is a big issue. Lack of bandwidth makes video meetings problematic. 10MB/Sec down and 3MB/Sec up is the absolute minimum.. Your company should pay for Internet service for virtual salespeople and if bandwidth is insufficient an upgrade is required.

• Camera angle (must be eye-level, whether sitting or standing)

• Lighting should evenly illuminate the face, not over-bright, and no shadows, but the ral use of external lighting is to light the green screen behind you to make your image crisp with no blurring.

• I recommend physical whiteboards for salespeople and standing vs. seated delivery.  When using a mobile whiteboard, salespeople who are standing can communicate more effectively using their physiology to convey emotion and meaning, putting themselves in the room virtually with the buyer.

• A microphone should provide crystal-clear sound with ample volume, without echoes from hard surfaces. Consider a quality wired USB or blue-tooth microphone for clear concise voice capture.

• We recommend a green screen behind the salesperson or SE, as background. 

Office desk, office chair, external monitor, desk-riser.

• Do salespeople have a desk or do they use the bed or kitchen table?  Where possible situate the desk so the salesperson has a wall behind them, vs a view into the room.

• IKEA has great drop-sided desk options for people working in tight spaces. A desk is a more professional setup, even in a bedroom.

• Are salespeople sitting on a kitchen chair or an ergonomic office chair? - it's hard to do good work for 8 hours a day in an uncomfortable chair.

• Do they have an external-monitor or only a laptop? A good quality high-resolution external-monitor is extremely useful and highly recommended.

• Do they meet prospects sitting or standing in Zoom calls?  If they stand, do they have a desk-riser or standing desk to bring the camera and screen to eye level?  We recommend that salespeople conduct their meetings standing.